


A crooked seam

by epersonae



Series: The Journal-Keeper [18]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, Post cycle 65, Shortly before The Forgetting, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 02:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15985616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae
Summary: Tiny moments between the journal-keeper and her captain: signs of things to come.





	1. Repairing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bruised_fruit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bruised_fruit/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the prompt “It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself.“

They’re walking the ship so she can show him everything that needs repairs; it’s less than it could have been, and she’s proud of that. For a year, she figured out how to patch and work around broken parts, and scavenge from junkyards and scavenge from the ship itself. She’s grateful for Magnus’s hoarding of weird bits and pieces, for all the strange magical stuff Taako and Lup have accumulated from a dozen worlds. And she learned, too, how to weld and solder and twist together wires when she wasn’t entirely sure if those were the right ones.

“I borrowed some of your books,” is all she says, when Davenport runs one of his small sensitive hands over a crooked seam. He nods.

“Quality work,” he replies. “Hard to learn that sort of thing on your own.”

“It wasn’t too hard,” she says. It was grueling: she was hungry, and even with Fisher around she was desperately lonely, and all the diagrams were confusing. Most of the tools were designed for experts, and some of them really needed a second person. But she did what she needed to, just enough to get moving before other scavengers discovered her.

She keeps walking, ready to show him the next thing. But he doesn’t follow, and when she doesn’t hear his light footfall right behind her, she stops. When she turns, his hand is still on that rough patch on the wall of the ship. He’s frowning, just a little, and then he shakes his head.

“Lucretia.”

She winces, and looks everywhere but at him. Everywhere she looks is dusty, more worn than ever, less broken than it could have been, but more than she wishes it was.

He clears his throat. “I spent years,” he says, “learning how to care for ships; years before I would have ever touched something like this. And you—” His hand on the hull tightens into a fist. His voice is even, but she can feel something almost like fury beneath it. “You had to do all this, all by yourself.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “I’m sure anyone else would have done…. Probably others would have done better.” 

“No one else has had to,” he says. “None of us have gone it alone like this.”

“I made it,” she says, trying to summon the defiance she felt as they’d formed anew, so recent and yet it feels so distant.

“You did, and you shouldn’t sell yourself short for that.” He reaches out to take her hand; she still feels uncomfortable with physical contact, but she makes the effort to respond without flinching. But she can’t help minimizing.

“It’s what had to be done,” she says. “You would have—”

He shakes his head. “Stop. I know you’re trying to convince yourself, but it’s okay for it to have been hard.” Now she does flinch, and his voice finds the anger that’s been simmering below the surface. “All of this is hard, it’s all terrible. We do what we can, but it’s  _ awful,  _ Lucretia. We’re fleeing  _ existential horror.  _ You are allowed to admit that it’s hard, that you’re scared, that, that….” He stops then, as if the feeling is more than he can possibly express.

“Captain.” Her voice is unsteady but clear. “It was bad, yes, but I’m going to be alright. I promise.” She squeezes his hand, but then she lets it go and squares her shoulders. Maybe she’ll confess the extent of it in the middle of the night, to one of the crew; maybe, and maybe not. “Shall I show you what we need to do in the engine room?”

He frowns, and looks about to say something. But he doesn’t. 


	2. Breaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Tumblr prompt for Lucretia and Davenport (“Your smile is not as bright as it used to be.”) Somehow this felt like it was part of the same thought as the other one, and both are short, so I'm just adding it as a second chapter.

They’re playing cards again, as usual. Davenport feels uneasy, still, adrift and without a purpose much like his ship. Not exploring the planes as was their original mission so long ago, nor on their hundred-year task of saving planes and outrunning the apocalypse. Just — waiting, watching, hoping that the disasters below them someday soon begin to fade.

And playing cards with his oldest friend, passing the time as if hiding from the world. Maybe they are. Maybe, specifically, the two of them are hiding from the truth of things. Lup is gone. He lost a member of his crew, and he’s not even part of trying to find her. And the world, the whole world is breaking, and a little piece of glass that he crafted with his own hands is part of that brokenness.

He looks across the table at Merle, who frowns at his cards. Kind, gentle, off-kilter Merle, always hoping to save, or trying to cheer, the peoples of the doomed worlds they’ve passed through. But below, almost certainly a storm rages somewhere caused by that damnable belt. How many will be drowned this time?

They’re not doing anything. They’re playing cards. They’re wasting time.

He looks up, and Lucretia is in the galley, making a cup of tea. He hasn’t seen her much recently, he realizes. There’s little ink stains on her hands, and a smudge on her cheek, as if she had wiped her face without realizing. She lets out a long sigh just as the kettle comes to a boil.

She leans against the counter as her tea steeps, watching him and Merle with those dark serious eyes. He wonders when she last got any sleep.

When she crosses the room with her tea, Merle looks up. Davenport expects him to continue their game, but instead his eyes narrow when he catches a look at Lucretia’s face.

“Ain’t seen your bright smile too much, sis,” he says. She gives a half-hearted one, something dim and faded by comparison.

“I’m alright,” she says. “Just tired.”

Merle harrumphs.

“Lucretia,” Davenport says, softly but with a stern edge. She keeps looking at them with that faint simulacrum of a smile; the hand around the cup handle tightens almost imperceptibly. 

“It’s fine, captain, Merle. Enjoy your game?” And she keeps going; Merle asks for fresh cards, and they start another hand. He wants to say something else, but can’t find the words.


End file.
